These posts have stemmed from a debate that was started accidentally elsewhere, and although it had started getting a bit personal there, it has raised some interesting questions, and some further areas I would like to explore, and I feel the subject deserves an airing here. I will make it fairly easy to respond to any section that you wish to by numbering various points that were made,do feel free to add your views but do try to keep them general and free from swearing please!

Most of these unless otherwise stated are my own personal views and I will NOT take it personally if you disagree, in fact that would make for a healthy all-round discussion. I would like to add here that I was one of the privileged high-earners and big spenders myself untill the UK’s industry took a huge nose-dive, so I do know what it’s like from both sides of the fence!

I will happily approve all comments that follow the above remit, whether you agree or disagree with any comments made here! 🙂

And any tips you may have, even if you are NOT from the UK, may well help somebody somewhere so do feel free to join in, wherever you are based!

1. Another assertion made today in the park of all places when I was casually chatting to a small group of older folks was that there are always jobs out there to be had, so long as you weren’t fussy about hard work, the general consensus amongst the retired seems to be that the youth of today simply don’t want to work. That wouldn’t be because for years the older generation extolled the virtues of studying hard at school, then going to university, getting horribly into debt and you would be guaranteed a well-paid job would it?

2. Also mentioned was the “fact” that anyone can find a job if you try hard enough……I personally know several people who do nothing but job-hunt continuously, only to be told they are too old, too overqualified, too young, not enough experience, you name it they’ve been told it. I myself have been hunting hard for ANYTHING and I do mean anything, this month alone in between the usual batch of bogus “sales rep” jobs that require you to pay to work, ( yes, these are actually allowed to be advertised in Jobcentres!) there were four potential new jobs shown, all of which I applied for, none of which were either full-time nor permanent, and not one offered enough to cover the rent for a room let alone normal basic living costs for a family!

Oh, and the responses I got from these would-be employers, AFTER I followed the applications I had made, ranged from ” we are looking for someone to live-in and our shared rooms are not child-friendly, sorry”, to “we don’t consider someone of your age-group to be suitable to work in a nightclub” ( and yes, they actually said this on the telephone!)

3. There are, to put it simply, far more adults of working age around these days compared to say, 30 years ago, and when you have a worldwide climate of recession, with the ensuing large number of companies going under, the amount of work available is going to diminish under the tidal wave of people needing employment. Yes, there are a few, especially in the UK, who deem some jobs to be simply beneath them, but despite the continuous and biased news reports about people claiming benefits, overall most people simply want to be able to go out and earn an honest living and be able to pay their way. And the few companies that are in a position to hire are spoilt for choice when it comes to applicants and are fully able and willing to be as choosy as they like!

4. I personally feel that a lot of the Red Tape that has been put into place in recent times needs to be lifted, allow people to job-share if that suits them, don’t tax low-income families, and actually make that no-tax ceiling realistically in line with the basic cost of living. Companies might then be able to afford to hire more people than they currently can, more people would be able to do something to get themselves headed in the right direction and overall, if people have a little more to spend, spend they will therefore keeping production lines going along nicely, ad infinitum!